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No letdown for the Bowmen

Sherwood stays unbeaten by scoring a 61-10 win over Parkrose

SHERWOOD - Letdown?

What letdown?

The Sherwood High School football team sure didn't have one.

The Bowmen, just a week after scoring an emotional 28-23 win over rival Wilsonville in a Northwest Oregon Conference showdown, came out fired-up from the start as they rolled to a 61-10 victory over Parkrose in a league game played in front of a Senior Night crowd Friday at Sherwood High School.

'There's no letdown,' Sherwood senior fullback/linebacker Travis Dyer said after the game. 'We're always prepared for what we're going to see. And it's Senior Night. We have 24 seniors and this was our last guaranteed home game.'

'We wanted to come in tonight and keep things going,' Sherwood senior halfback Connor Munro said. 'We were excited for this game. This was a lot of fun. It's Senior Night and we have a lot of good memories playing here on this field. We wanted to go out with a bang.'

Parkrose fell to 0-5 in league games and to 1-6 on the season with the setback. With the win, Sherwood's 20th straight, the Bowmen improved to 5-0 in NWOC games and to 7-0 on the season.

'There was no letdown,' Sherwood coach Greg Lawrence said. 'We learned from the St. Helens game earlier this season. We're not taking anyone for granted. The kids played well. We had good practices this week and there's also something a little bit about Senior Night. It was a good night. We got a lot of kids in there.'

Did they ever.

Sherwood had 16 different players carry the ball in Friday's game, with no playing having more than four carries. Still, those 16 Bowmen ball carriers accounted for 335 rushing yards on 27 carries.

'We executed real well on offense,' said Munro, who had 32 rushing yards on just two carries. 'The offensive line did a great job. We're sometimes undersized out there, but our guys push hard. That makes our job running the ball easier.'

Sherwood senior halfback Paul Dodson started the Bowmen scoring parade with a 19-yard touchdown run coming with 7 minutes and 34 seconds left in the first quarter.

Sherwood senior A.J. Spencer then intercepted a Parkrose pass on the Broncos' ensuing possession. Spencer then capped off a quick 63-yard touchdown drive with a 59-yard touchdown run that upped the lead to 14-0 with 6:03 left in the opening period.

A 9-yard touchdown run by Munro pushed the lead to 20-0 with 3:27 still left to play in the first quarter.

Parkrose came back, getting a 3-yard touchdown run by senior quarterback Zach Abney to make the score 20-7. But the Bowmen answered right back. Another long TD run by Spencer, this one covering 47 yards, pushed the lead to 27-7 with 9:14 left in the second quarter.

The lead increased to 33-7 when Bowmen sophomore Scott Skurdahl scored on a 1-yard blast with 6:24 remaining in the first half.

Dyer then came up with two huge plays - one coming on defense and one on offense - covering a total of 7 seconds of game time.

First, he tackled Parkrose senior Marquis Hammick for a 3-yard loss on a fourth-and-inches play from the Bronco 42-yard line. On the very next play, Dyer sprinted up a huge hole opened up in the middle of the line and sprinted for a 39-yard TD run that upped the margin to 40-7 with 2:17 left in the half.

'That was fun,' Dyer said. 'It was an easy read on the fourth-down play. On the touchdown run, the offensive line had some incredible blocks.'

Dyer couldn't decide which of the two big plays was the most fun.

'Winning is the big thing,' Dyer said with a smile.

Sherwood, which still led 40-7 at halftime, opened the third quarter in a big way. Dodson, after fielding a squib kick, returned the second-half kickoff 76 yards down the left sideline for a touchdown that pushed the lead to 47-7.

Sherwood also got an 11-yard touchdown run by sophomore halfback Cody Jacot and senior cornerback Chris Jackson returned an interception 31 yards for a touchdown to cap off the scoring for the Bowmen in their 61-10 victory.

'I'm really proud of how we executed tonight,' Lawrence said. 'It was a fun game all around.'

Spencer led the Sherwood rushing attack with 136 yards on four carries. Dyer had 48 yards on two carries and Skurdahl had 38 yards on four carries.

The Bowmen defense, which had many thunderous hits in the contest, limited Parkrose to 228 yards of offense.

'We have this thing called a hit stick,' Dyer said. 'We try to hit hard and hit clean.'

'Getting big hits is a lot of fun,' Munro said.

Dyer and senior defensive lineman Bryan VanOrman each had a pair of tackles for losses in the contest. Junior Cyrus Mooney, senior Emilio Rivera and sophomore Michey Schaefer each had one tackle for a loss.